In certain systems, data may be received by a processing device from one or more peripheral devices on a continual, periodic basis. Many systems that employ sensors to detect parameters of interest behave in this way. For example, the output of a sensor may be sampled on a periodic basis and written to a cache of the processing device, where the processing device can then access and manage the data according to a particular application. This type of continuously updated raw data is referred to as a data stream. Depending on the rate that data is received from peripheral device(s), the format of the data, and the number of peripheral device(s) contributing to the stream, the amount of data transmitted in a stream can vary considerably among applications.
Together with the general trend of increasing bandwidth capabilities in electronic devices, data streams in modern systems often transmit large amounts of data. In many situations, the information in a data stream may be used to make quick decisions in real-time that affect one or more other operations of the device processing the stream or a related business. Thus, it is often desirable for a device to process a received data stream as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.